


Sanctuary

by Yukio



Series: Growing Up Together [2]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Boys Kissing, First Kiss, M/M, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:18:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukio/pseuds/Yukio
Summary: Two teengers, best friends. But their relationship shifts in a new direction. Mostly fluff.





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank Ravenshell for editing my grammar and Chercherin for inspiring this story.

“Move your ass, Inukkoro!”

“Call me that one more time and I’ll rip your ass!”

“Only if you catch me!” The words were accompanied by cheerful laughter. Bare feet stomped on the ground as two lithe figures ran under high forest trees. Too young and carefree, they didn’t think about the dangers lurking in abandoned dark places. Thinking they were fast and strong and clever enough to deal with anything that would get in their path, they wandered away from the protective influence of their guardians.

Luckily, their feet led them only to the parts of the forest where nothing dangerous lived and they could play as much as they wanted, safe from trouble (but not their guardians’ anger).

“Hurry up, slowpoke!” the young wolf youkai yelled, grinning over his shoulder at his silver-haired chaser, not watching under his feet. The ground took its revenge on him for the lack of attention and sent him a tuft of grass in the way. Kouga tripped over it and fell down face first. He didn’t even have time to stand up when a live weight pinned him back on the ground.

“Gotcha!” A chuckle sounded close to his ear.

“Get off me,” he growled and waved his arms and legs, trying to get up from under the hanyou sitting on him and laughing.

 “Or what?” Inuyasha asked and Kouga could definitely hear the smirk in his question. “Will you tell on me to your pack?”

“Maybe.”

“Crybaby,” the half-demon snorted and got off Kouga’s back. He sat down in the grass next to him.

The youkai lifted from the ground immediately and glared at Inuyasha. He didn’t stand up, though, and stayed sitting next to his friend. “What now?” he asked.

Inuyasha shrugged. “Dunno.”

“We’re already in so much trouble,” the wolf demon chuckled.

The hanyou grinned. “Yeah. Isn’t it exciting? Adventure!” He threw his arms in the air and rolled on his back.

Kouga laughed. “You’re an idiot.”

Inuyasha shrugged, looking up at the sky. The atmosphere suddenly turned somber.

“How is it going back there?”Kouga asked in a low voice as though he was afraid of his own question. He knew that Inuyasha’s home wasn’t a friendly place towards youkai and he as a hanyou didn’t have a happy life there.

“I’m dealing,” Inuyasha said indifferently.

“Why don’t you and your mom move from there?”

The half-demon sighed quietly, his eyes still fixed on the sky. “She doesn’t want to,” he said. “She says I’m not strong enough and she can’t protect me out there. That those are her people and…”He sighed again. “I’m simply too young, too stupid, too weak…” he finished, raising his hand and looking at it as if estimating how much damage it could do. 

“Maybe you could come to us,” Kouga said thoughtfully. “I think if I talked to our elders, they wouldn’t have anything against it.”

Inuyasha gave his friend a small smile. “It sounds nice. But I don’t think Mom would want to leave and she wouldn’t let me go there alone.”

“Ask her. Tell her you’ll be happier with us,” Kouga insisted.

“I can try,” Inuyasha said and smiled at Kouga.

*

The moon flooded the dark land with its silvery light. Eerie shadows stretched over the familiar grounds, turning them into new, unexplored places, attractive for boys who had just entered their teenage years.

Grass was rustling softly under bare feet hurrying to the meeting place. 

“Kouga!”

Kouga raised his hand and waved to his friend. Inuyasha ran to him, his face gloomy, matching Kouga’s.  

“Judging from your expression, it didn’t go well with your mom…” the youkai boy commented.

Inuyasha sighed. “I’m sorry. She said that we would never be safe with youkai…”

Kouga nodded. “It’s actually something similar to what my grandfather said. He said that neither humans nor hanyou are welcome in our circles. If I want to be friends with you, it’s okay, but you are not welcome in our clan,” he said and looked at Inuyasha dejectedly. “I’m so sorry… I thought we were better than this.”

“It’s all right,” Inuyasha said. “To be honest, Mom didn’t even expect anything else…”

“So she knew…”

“Yeah…”

“I’m still sorry,” Kouga said and sat down. Inuyasha sank next to him. They faced the same direction, looking into the distance as they were processing their disappointment.

“Hey, Inuyasha,” Kouga broke the silence that had settled between them. “We won’t get disheartened by this. We’re stronger than this, aren’t we?” He looked right at his friend.

Inuyasha turned to the youkai. “What do you mean?”

“We are friends, aren’t we? And this,” the youkai boy spread his arms as though he wanted to contain the land bathing in the moonlight, “is here for us. This is our playground, our sanctuary, our place to be together. I know you have to go back home, I do too, but here we can be ourselves.”

Inuyasha looked into Kouga’s eyes, staring at him with sincerity and hope. A small, grateful smile curled his lips and he wiggled his ears.

“I can still beat you in sparring,” he said with a grin.

The demon boy snorted. “But you can never outrun me.”

“You think?” Inuyasha raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“I’m sure about it,” Kouga said confidently.

“Fine,” the hanyou said and stood up. He brushed the invisible dirt from his kimono leisurely… and suddenly darted into the darkness. “Catch me if you can!”

Kouga needed a second to realize what just happened. He grinned and shot after Inuyasha. It was no problem for him to catch up with the half-demon, who was fast himself, but Kouga was a good runner even among his own kind.

“Gotcha!” he cried and jumped on Inuyasha. The hanyou lost his balance and the two of them toppled over, rolling down a small slope.

“Ow! You moron!” Inuyasha complained as they landed, Kouga on top of him.

The youkai giggled. “What? You like such games.”

“When I was a baby. I grew up.”

“Aw, come on,” Kouga laughed and bit Inuyasha’s shoulder playfully.

“Heeeeey, let me gooooo!” Inuyasha howled, wiggling under the youkai.

“Or what?” Kouga raised his torso and straddled the hanyou.

“What the hell are you doing!? I’m not your horse or whatever you think I am!”

Kouga laughed again and stood up. “You’re funny when you’re mad.”

“I’ll give you mad!” Inuyasha barked and pounced on the wolf youkai.

They fought, but it was more a game than a true angry fight. They hit each other and bit and growled. They rolled on the ground, jumped on their feet and chased each other around. They had fun. Inuyasha was grinning and showing Kouga who was the stronger one of the two of them and Kouga was a stubborn idiot that didn’t want to understand that.

At one moment Inuyasha managed to grab Kouga’s arm and toppled him to the ground, but he didn’t expect Kouga to hold onto him for dear life. They ended up lying one on top of the other once again, only this time they were facing each other. They stared into each other’s eyes and Kouga felt that something happened. Something was different, but he couldn’t say what. Inuyasha’s eyes were wide and maybe scared and Kouga believed his were no different than his friend’s. His heart was beating louder than a sword maker’s hammer and it was almost painful.

Well. Almost.

Something about that feeling was sweet and nice and _exciting._ It pushed Kouga into something he had never done before, something that scared him shitless, but also filled him with curiosity.

He took Inuyasha’s face in his hands and watched as his friend’s pupils widened. He didn’t give him time to react, to run; he pulled his head closer and connected their lips. Inuyasha’s body went stiff and tense; he was absolutely unresponsive. Kouga didn’t know if it was good or bad – on one hand Inuyasha wasn’t trying to beat the shit out of him, on the other the lack of reaction could only mean the silence before the storm. If that was the case, Kouga was determined to say he was just kidding.

He pulled away, his palms still pressed to Inuyasha’s cheeks. The golden eyes were still wide and Kouga could read many things in them – except anger, as weird as it was.

The wolf boy got scared. It wasn’t like his friend. Inuyasha, always temperamental and ready to explode whenever he didn’t like something, was quiet and motionless like a statue.

“Inu… yasha?” Kouga addressed him, releasing the hanyou’s face from his hands.

Inuyasha finally moved. He got off Kouga and sat down next to him, facing away from him. Kouga rose from the ground and sat next to the hanyou shoulder by shoulder. He turned to him, watching his face. He was afraid to say anything. He was afraid that Inuyasha would run from him and wouldn’t want to see him ever again.

Inuyasha’s chest was heaving in the fast rhythm of his breathing. It was obvious there was too much going on inside of him. Kouga sat there, quiet and terrified, blue eyes fixed on the hanyou. He was begging him in his mind to forget what had just happened and be his normal self.

After long minutes that felt like eternity to the young teenage wolf youkai, Inuyasha turned to Kouga, golden eyes meeting the blue ones.

Kouga’s breath hitched in his lungs. Inuyasha leaned to him and their lips met again in a soft, innocent kiss.

Time stopped for that moment and when Inuyasha pulled away and they looked into each other’s eyes once more, there were new sparks in them, saying they had just found a new dimension of the world they hadn’t known so far.

A little smile stretched over Kouga’s lips. He shifted a bit closer.

Inuyasha looked somewhere into the distance, but his shoulder touched Kouga’s.

They both were quiet, sitting there and enjoying each other’s presence.

They were more than friends. They didn’t have words for it just yet, but they could feel the connection between them became stronger. And they had a lifetime to figure this new shift in their relationship out.


End file.
